‘The Giver’ Trailer Brings Light to Colorless World

The new trailer for the big-screen adaptation of Lois Lowry's bestselling young-adult novel 'The Giver' doesn't get it completely right. The original book focuses on a "colorless" world, but the above clip doesn't take things so literally.

The world presented here is actually quite beautiful and awesome, serving as an advanced, futuristic place that's not quite as detailed in the original novel. Then again, how else would a society eliminate emotions and memories from its populace for the sake of guaranteed conformity unless there was some futuristic and sci-fi way to do it?

Newcomer Australian actor Brenton Thwaites plays the story's protagonist, Jonas, who is given an important role designated by the totalitarian Elders of his society. As the Receiver of Memory, Jonas must have the memories and emotions of an entire society passed onto him in order to keep some ongoing preservation of its humanity. The Elders making sure that every person takes daily injections that makes each individual strictly adhere to living the exact same life, stripping away all individuality in the process.

The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, plays the previous Receiver of Memory (also known as the Giver of the movie's title), who's been tasked with passing on feelings and memories to Jonas over time and to help guide him to interpreting feelings, like happiness, loss and eventually love.

Meryl Streep plays the villainous Chief Elder, who wants to reinforce the societal standard of sameness and dispassion for the sake of productivity while making sure nobody thinks for themselves. Jonas rebels against all this, as you can sorta see in the trailer.

As far as dystopian tales go, 'The Giver' -- which opens on Aug. 15 -- is a pretty popular one. Even if there's a bit more color to this world than fans anticipated, it's always great to see Bridges in sage roles like this.